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The Aftermath of LAIC

Looking Forward to Roanoke

What’s up 60 Cards readers? Did you attend the LAIC? Well, regardless of your answer, Metagame Analysis has you covered! LAIC saw some of our 60 Cards writers do extremely well, Daniel Altavilla winning the entire event and Zach Lesage making Top Eight!

There were many interesting decks featured at this event and the goal of this article is to cover those decks to keep you in the loop for this weekend. We are sure that there is definitely going to be some crossover of archetypes played from the LAIC heading into Roanoke so let’s check out the best decks!

The Top Decks from LAIC

This past weekend saw players from all over the world play for the chance to be crowned the LAIC champion and there were no secrets kept when players were choosing decks! We have looked over the metagame, picked out the best decks to review, and we will cover those today.

Here are the decks that we believe will make the biggest impact at Roanoke this weekend (and League Cups if you aren’t going to a Roanoke). We are going to link the decks to allow you to easily access whichever deck you want, but feel free to check out all of the following decks to get a full idea on the metagame:

All of the following decks were featured in the Top Eight of the recent Latin America International Championships in São Paulo, Brazil.

Zoroark-GX / Magcargo

60 Cards’ own Daniel Altavilla was able to be crowned LAIC Champion after expertly piloting his
Zoroark GX (SLG; 53)
/
Magcargo (CLS; 24)
‘control’ deck to an impressive undefeated finish. The goal of his deck is to utilize cards over and over again by using
Oranguru (UPR; 114)
’s Resource Management,
Zoroark GX (SLG; 53)
’s Trade Ability, and disruption cards. You can use
Counter Catcher (CIN; 91)
to bring up Pokémon with a large Retreat Cost,
Crushing Hammer (SUM; 115)
to take away their extra Energy Cards, and
Team Skull Grunt (SUM; 133)
to keep their options limited. The deck has a lot of different play styles so I would recommend looking back on the streamed games from LAIC and learning more about this deck. If you are considering this deck, which you should, we advise you to be prepared for the amount of thinking you will have to do to see success.

Energy (5)

A cool addition that we liked in this deck was
Articuno GX (CLS; 31)
because it adds multiple layers of strategy to this deck. It offers a way to switch a Pokémon out of the Active Position, it can offer more HP in a pinch (to become a shield), and it can take away all of your opponents Energy from their Active Pokémon with its GX attack.
Articuno GX (CLS; 31)
is especially strong against Pokémon that require large amounts of Energy, such as
Buzzwole GX (CIN; 57)
or
Blacephalon GX (LT; 52)
, so keep your eyes open for those Pokémon.

Granbull / Magcargo

Nicolas Galaz seems to be on a tear after having a fantastic run at Worlds and having an even better run at LAIC. His deck,
Granbull (LT; 138)
/
Magcargo (CLS; 24)
, was not a deck that we expected to see perform so well, but I guess we were wrong.
Granbull (LT; 138)
l utilizes Cards to make sure that its hand is always at zero. It is quite weird to bring your hand down to zero, but it does allow All In to hit for a massive 160 damage. When you add in damage modifiers like
Choice Band (GRI; 121)
and
Shrine of Punishment (CLS; 143)
, this deck truly can pack a whopping punch! Each turn you should be able to use Smooth Over to grab what you want,
Oranguru (SUM; 113)
to draw that card, and find inventive ways to bring your hand to zero cards with
Ultra Ball (SLG; 68)
. This deck requires quite a bit of planning and it can sometimes get a clunky hand, but it is certainly a great choice (obviously!) based on the results from LAIC.

Energy (6)

Galaz included some cool cards in his deck, like
Diantha (FLI; 105)
and
Fiery Flint (DM; 60)
, to make sure that he would always be able to use All In effectively. Diantha is great because you can continuously grab the cards you need back from your Discard Pile after a
Granbull (LT; 138)
is Knocked Out. While
Fiery Flint (DM; 60)
is a card that seldom sees play, it works great in this deck as a fifth
Ultra Ball (SLG; 68)
when it comes to getting clunky cards out of your hand. Whichever way you decide to play this deck, make sure that you are always able to get cards out of your hand!

Energy (9)

We that that Goh’s inclusion of
Magcargo (CLS; 24)
is cute because you can layer what you need with the potential strategy of not using
Zoroark GX (SLG; 53)
. This allows you to gather any card you want on top of you deck and it is not a double Prize Card Pokémon. The other cool thing about this deck is that it focuses on using
Counter Gain (LT; 170)
to its fullest by playing around Prize Cards with
Decidueye GX (SUM; 12)
’s Feather Arrow Ability. The only issue that we have with this list is when we tested it, it sometimes failed to get consistent starts. Perhaps our testing was not as conclusive as Goh’s so we will go back and test it some more!

Blacephalon-GX / Naganadel

60 Cards’ own Zach Lesage was able to have a solid Top Eight performance at LAIC with his creative
Blacephalon GX (LT; 52)
/
Naganadel (LT; 108)
deck. This deck is all about consistency, taking quick Prize Cards, and overwhelming your opponent as soon as possible. He goal is to quickly use Burst GX, get
Naganadel (LT; 108)
l set up, and start using Mind Blown with
Blacephalon GX (LT; 52)
! If your opposing is able to draw two or three Prize Cards, you can use
Beast Ring (FLI; 102)
to quickly attach
Fire Energy (GEN; 76)
to your Ultra Beast Pokémon to have more Mind Blown fodder available. This deck has solid match ups across the board, is easy to play, so we think its going to have a solid performance at Roanoke.

Good Luck This Weekend

Well, that concludes this week’s Metagame Analysis! I hope that you have enjoyed this journey and that you look forward to next weeks FREE article.

Next week, we will be looking over the aftermath of Roanoke Regionals for your viewing pleasure. It is our hopes that with the content becoming better each week, that you will decide to support our site with a subscription.